THE BUILDING COMMITTEE for the new Somerset Berkley Regional High School last week discussed salvaging some existing materials from the football field area that will be taken over by a contractor after the football team gets down playing its games there this year. The contractor will be putting in a new artificial turf field....

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Posted Oct. 17, 2012 at 10:41 AM

Posted Oct. 17, 2012 at 10:41 AM

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THE BUILDING COMMITTEE for the new Somerset Berkley Regional High School last week discussed salvaging some existing materials from the football field area that will be taken over by a contractor after the football team gets down playing its games there this year. The contractor will be putting in a new artificial turf field. Carlos Campos, supervisor of buildings and grounds for the School Department, said there are bleachers, football equipment, storage sheds and a scoreboard on the property that he would like to salvage. He was not sure if the School Department wanted to keep the lights for the football field. Project Manager Daniel Tavares said it may be difficult to transport the lights. He said the contractor will not be taking over the area until after Thanksgiving. Building Committee member Richard Peirce said the School Department should find out if people wants things from the field, like the goal posts, so that arrangements can be made to remove them. Mr. Campos said the Somerset Recreation Department owns the bleachers at the field and so will take them back. He also noted that the football scoreboard was only set up to be used for football games and not other sports.

SAFETY HAS BEEN ASSESSED for the Somerset Berkley Regional High School site because of the construction that is taking place on the property. Mr. Tavares said the safety of buses and where students park was assessed by a consultant. He said the consultant assessed the traffic in the morning at the school and will come back in the afternoon to see what it is like at that time. In general, Mr. Tavares said the consultant did not find any safety problems on the site. He said she did ask for some fabric to be pulled back to improve the sight lines on Luther Avenue. Mr. Tavares said the consultant thinks the traffic is moving smoothly on the site. He said he thinks there is an issue with cars pulling in the Grandview Avenue entrance and the front parking lot.

BUILDING COMMITTEE MEMBER GUY BORGES said he thinks a complaint was filed with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency about work being done on the new Somerset Berkley Regional High School building because someone does not like the project. Environmental Protection Agency representatives recently inspected the site, asked questions to the contractor and requested documentation about the project. Conservation Agent Timothy Turner said the work on the project had been started without approval for a storm water permit from the federal agency and there were issues with runoff from the project during two storms this year, but since that time, those issues have been addressed. Mr. Tavares said the contractor has been doing a good job lately addressing sedimentation and erosion control for the project. He said a pile of fill is under control and said areas around Luther Avenue and County Street have been cleaned up.

DESIGNATING THE NEW HIGH SCHOOL BUILDING as a shelter would cost more money for the project because of requirements for such shelters, Daren Sawyer of Ai3 Architects said. The current high school building is used as a shelter for people who may be displaced from their homes because of events, like hurricanes. Mr. Sawyer said there would be increased structural costs for the new building to meet the requirements for it to become a shelter. He said a lot of Ai3's clients use their buildings as shelters and that could be done if the Building Committees wants. But he said some of the requirements for shelters include having materials that are blast proof, bullet proof and seismic proof. Mr. Peirce said the fire marshal raised the issue of whether the new high school building would be designated as a shelter.

MR. CAMPOS HAS PUT UP SHIELDS ON LIGHTS being used for the new high school building project and has put timers on the lights because of concerns from neighbors who said the lights were shining on their houses. He said more watering is also being done near the Luther Avenue area of the project because of concerns about dust that neighbors wanted addressed.

THE NEW TENNIS COURTS AT THE HIGH SCHOOL will not be completed by this fall, as required in the contract, according to Michael Morrison of Skanska USA Building, because of weather and unsuitable materials that were found in the soil in the area. Mr. Morrison said that paving can be done for the project and posts put in, but said the coating for the tennis courts will not be able to be done until the spring because of the limited window for the temperature that is needed to put the coating down. Mr. Tavares said the new courts could be completed by the first week in May which is in the middle of the high school tennis team's season. Mr. Peirce said he asked one of the high school's tennis coaches if the team could play on asphalt with lines drawn for the courts and said the coach had reservations about doing that, although he did not think it was impossible. He said the tennis coach was concerned that the black asphalt surface could affect the ball and play. Mr. Peirce asked if using some sort of sealant over the asphalt would make a better playing surface until the coating could be put on. Building Committee member Robert Anctil said he did not think a sealant would make much of a difference.

A PROPOSAL TO HAVE PHOTOGRAPHS TAKEN as work is going along on the new high school project was rejected by the Building Committee last week. The proposed would have cost the school district $75,000 to have the pictures taken which Building Committee member Robert Anctil thought was worth it because it could help the School Department fix problems at the high school in the future. Photographs would be taken of underground plumbing and of wall, ceiling and floor areas as they are being built. School Department Business Manager Marc Furtado said he thought having photos of the underground plumbing was important, because once the slab is poured, it would be difficult to get at that area. A representative of the company that wanted to do the photographs said he could bring the price down to $40,000 to $60,000, depending on what photographs the Building Committee wanted, but Mr. Anctil felt that if the full job was not going to be done, it would not be worth it. Mr. Peirce expressed some concerned about paying for the photos, saying that there could be additional costs for the high school project down the road. He noted about $200,000 in change orders that are being requested for the project and said the school district would not be reimbursed by the Massachusetts School Building Authority for those costs. Building Committee member Laurent Guay asked if there could be cost savings down the road on the project that could make up for the $75,000. Building Committee Chairman Richard Fenstermaker said he did not know that. Building Committee member Robert Pineault said the photographs could be of use to the school if repairs were needed or an addition was going to be constructed on the building. Mr. Anctil said the pictures could be useful for five, 10 or 20 years down the road when there is a problem with the building. Building Committee member John Dator said having the photographs done could save the school district $75,000 in the future if it helped to save money on repairs. Mr. Anctil said he thought that money could be saved on one incident at the high school. Mr. Campos supported having the pictures done. "I think it's invaluable," Mr Furtado said. "It's insurance." Mr. Anctil said the interior components of the new building are expensive. Building Committee member Nick Romano said he works for a company that builds schools and in 10 years, he has not seen one of those schools buy such photographs. He said the Building Committee has thrown out other things in the project for less money becaues they did not want to buy "Cadillac" quality. He said $75,000 could go a long way toward pay for other parts of the project, such as switches for computer technology. Mr. Anctil said having the photographs is better than other types of plans. Mr. Romano said he did not think this type of building needed the photographs. He said the pictures might be good for a hospital building, but did not think they were needed for the high school. A representative of the company said his business is doing photographs for a school in Quincy. Building Committee member Julie Ramos Gagliardi said when the committee started the project, members were clear that they would not go over budget on the estimated $82.8 million building project. She said paying for the photographs could cause the committee to have to cut back in other areas. "We've got to watch every penny, because we said we would watch every penny," Ms. Gagliardi said. Building Committee member Patrick O'Neil said his concern was that the committee never put a job out to bid for taking photographs of the construction project. He was also concerned about the possibility that the photos could miss something in the building or that they would not be documented for the right spot. A representative of the company proposing to do the photos at last week's Building Committee meeting said that not long after the pictures are taken, they are shown to the contractor in charge of the project so they know the information the photos correspond with. Mr. Sawyer said as-built plans cost a lot of money.

MR. ANCTIL SAID THE BUILDING PERMIT THAT THE SCHOOL DISTRICT HAD TO PAY FOR IN ORDER TO BUILD THE NEW SCHOOL WAS A WASTE OF MONEY. Mr. O'Neil said the permit is not a waste of money because the school district is going to get services from the town. He said anyone who builds anything in Somerset has to take out a permit. The permit from the town cost $90,367.

MEETINGS: The Board of Selectmen will meet tonight, Oct. 17, at 5 p.m. at the Town Office Building, located at 140 Wood St. The selectmen will be going into an executive session that is not open to the public at that time. At approximately 6 p.m., the board will come out into an open meeting for the public. The Zoning Board of Appeals will meet tomorrow, Oct. 18, at 7 p.m. in the hearing room on the first floor of the Town Office Building. The Somerset Berkley Regional School Committee, which oversees the high school, and Somerset School Committee, which oversees kindergarten through grade eight, will have a joint meeting at the North Elementary School tomorrow at the North Elementary School to hear a presentation from a food vendor who would operate and manage the cafeterias in the schools. The regional school committee has scheduled its own meeting for 7:45 p.m. that night.

THE TOWN CLERK'S OFFICE was receiving some telephone calls last week from people in town who were confused about whether trash was going to be picked up on the Columbus Day holiday. Trash pickup was done for that holiday. It is only not done on major holidays that include Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year's Day, Memorial Day, Labor Day and the Fourth of July. On those major holidays, the trash is picked up a day late when they fall during the week, but on all of the other holidays, the trash is picked up on the holiday.